On its face, it's rather mystifying that "Meet the Press" has made David Brody a regular contributor. While progressive voices have been effectively absent from the Sunday morning shows in recent years, Tim Russert has invited the Capitol Hill correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network on for political analysis three times in as many months.

Perhaps, one might say, Brody's analysis is so enlightening, it transcends his bizarre and embarrassing televangelist boss. I'm afraid that's just not the case. Consider this exchange from this morning.

RUSSERT: Every debate, David Brody, the Republicans have, they make their point, "We understand Islamic fascism; we understand the terrorist threat; the Democrats don't." That is going to be their issue in 2008, just as it was in '04 and 2000.

BRODY: There's no doubt about it. I mean, it's somewhat of a, on the Republican side, a testosterone convention, in essence, is what it is. Because you have John McCain following him [bin Laden] "to the gates of hell." And you have Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney now saying Osama bin Laden is "crazy" and a little "cooky."

They are going to push this all the time. What's interesting though, I think, the bigger issue is on national security. You notice that the Democrats in all of these poll numbers that we see, that they trump the Republicans in many areas. When it comes to national security, it's roughly about even now.... At the end of the day, Republicans, this issue helps the Republicans more than the Democrats because they're going to be able to enforce this idea that Democrats want to go at this with law enforcement and Republicans don't and I think that will be the key difference as we move forward.

What?

It's hard to know where to begin with this kind of assessment, but the first thing that jumped out at me is the notion that Republican presidential hopefuls describing Osama bin Laden as "cooky" is evidence of "testosterone." Maybe I'm behind on my understanding of slang, but "cooky" doesn't strike me as a particularly aggressive insult for the terrorist responsible for 9/11.

Second, after an odd non sequitur, Brody believes Dems are going to lose support on national security because they believe intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts are the keys to effective counter-terrorism. But isn't it fairly obvious by now that Dems are right about this? Indeed, just last week, German officials disrupted a dangerous terrorist plot, not by sending in an army, but through months of intelligence gathering and law-enforcement legwork.

Brody is repeating a Bush talking point from three years ago, which was suspect at the time, and nonsensical now.

Maybe bookers for "Meet the Press" can expand their Rolodex a little bit?